Friday, May 4, 2012

THE GREAT DIVIDER IS JUST THAT - A DIVIDER

Divider in chief

“The pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states.”— Barack Obama, rising star, 2004 Democratic convention

Poor Solicitor General Donald Verrilli.Once again he’s been pilloried for fumbling a historic Supreme Court case. First shredded for his “train wreck” defense of Obamacare’s individual mandate, he is now blamed for the defenestration in oral argument of Obama’s challenge to the Arizona immigration law.
The law allows police to check the immigration status of someone stopped for other reasons. Verrilli claimed that constitutes an intrusion on the federal monopoly on immigration enforcement. He was pummeled. Why shouldn’t a state help the federal government enforce the law? “You can see it’s not selling very well,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
But Verrilli never had a chance. This was never a serious legal challenge in the first place. It was confected (and timed) purely for political effect, to highlight immigration as a campaign issue with which to portray Republicans as anti-Hispanic.
Hispanics, however, are just the beginning. The entire Obama campaign is a slice-and-dice operation, pandering to one group after another, particularly those that elected Obama in 2008 — blacks, Hispanics, women, young people — and for whom the thrill is now gone.
What to do? Try fear. Create division, stir resentment, by whatever means necessary — bogus court challenges, dead-end Senate bills and a forest of straw men.
Why else would the Justice Department challenge the photo ID law in Texas? To charge Republicans with seeking to disenfranchise Hispanics and blacks, of course. But in 2008 the Supreme Court upheld a similar law from Indiana. And it wasn’t close: 6 to 3, the majority including the venerated liberal John Paul Stevens.
Moreover, photo IDs were recommended by the 2005 Commission on Federal Election Reform, co-chaired by Jimmy Carter. And you surely can’t get into the attorney general’s building without one. Are Stevens, Carter and Eric Holder anti-Hispanic and anti-black?
The ethnic bases covered, we proceed to the “war on women.” It sprang to public notice when a 30-year-old student at an elite law school (starting private-sector salary upon graduation: $160,000) was denied the inalienable right to have the rest of the citizenry (as co-insured and/or taxpayers — median household income: $52,000) pay for her contraception.
Despite a temporary setback — Hilary Rosen’s hastily surrendered war on moms — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will resume the battle with a Paycheck Fairness Act that practically encourages frivolous lawsuits and has zero chance of passage.
No matter. Its sole purpose is to keep the war-on-women theme going, while the equally just-for-show “Buffett rule,” nicely pitting the 99 percent vs. the 1 percent, is a clever bit of class warfare designed to let Democrats play tribune of the middle class.
Ethnicity, race, gender, class. One more box to check: the young. Just four years ago, they swooned in the aisles for Obama. No longer. Not when 54 percent of college graduates under 25 are unemployed or underemployed.
How to shake them from their lethargy? Fear again. Tell them, as Obama repeatedly does, that Paul Ryan’s budget would cut Pell Grants by $1,000 each, if his domestic cuts were evenly distributed. (They are not evenly distributed, making the charge a fabrication. But a great applause line.)
Then warn that Republicans would double the interest rate on student loans. Well, first, Mitt Romney has said he would keep them right where they are. Second, as The Post points out, this is nothing but a recycled campaign gimmick from 2006, when Democrats advocated (and later passed) a 50 percent rate cut that gratuitously squanders student aid by subsidizing the wealthy as well as the needy.
For Obama, what’s not to like? More beneficiaries, more votes.
What else to run on with 1.7 percent GDP growth (2011), record long-term joblessness and record 8 percent-plus unemployment (38 consecutive months, as of this writing). Slice and dice, group against group.
There is a problem, however. It makes a mockery of Obama’s pose as the great transcender, uniter, healer of divisions. This is the man who sprang from nowhere with that thrilling 2004 convention speech declaring that there is “not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.”
That was then. Today, we are just sects with quarrels — to be exploited for political advantage. And Obama is just the man to fulfill Al Gore’s famous mistranslation of our national motto: Out of one, many.

3 comments:

Perhaps predictable and boring would be a better description. Either way it was not meant as a critique of your literary skills which are second to none on the blogosphere. Obama is a liberal. This does not automatically mean that he is hostile to American power. FDR and LBJ were liberals and they were certainly prepared to confront America’s enemies in an aggressive way. After 9/11 George Push pursued Al Qaeda with a sledgehammer. Obama has gone after them with a knife. The latter (special forces and UAV drones) has proven more effective. Facing this reality is like acid in the mouth for many conservative republicans. This is why I get bored with the weak, liberal, Un American, anti Semitic, apologist, narcissist slurs that constantly get hurled at the President. If Romney is to win in November, he will have to focus on the economy. The reverend Wright stuff didn’t work in 2008. It won’t work in 2012.

You should look in the mirror and whose the REAL narcissiants! You a-holes are going around thinking EVERY American is a racist, lying smears like you. You think EVERY American hates that a black man is President. Sorry to say there are NOT!

Since then you have consistantly called him a narcissist, an anti Semite and most recently a”cheap race hustler in an expensive suit” among many other insults I’m sure. I find this disusting and hypocritical.

President Obama is the divider? Are you kidding me? It's you racists, birthers, good ole boys, cheered on by Republicans who are the dividers.

Pandering and stirring up resentment and fear; sounds like a page right out of the neo-con playbook.

Krauthammer's article relies on a perenneal trick which is often employed by conservative Republicans; vehemently accuse your opponent of that nasty stuff that you are doing so as to distract people from your own offenses

There have only been 16 instances since 1939 where 500K jobs were gained in a given month. And it's only happened twice in the past 15 years (3 times since '83') and one was under Clinton, the other under Obama (May 2010). Romney very conveniently forgets what the job creation index was RIGHT before Obama came into office. Yes, NEGATIVE! What's funny is initially the Repubs claimed that Obama would "destroy" America...now they claim, he is improving America but TOO slow! Ridiculous!

The argument seems to be that after Bush and the Republicans destroyed the American and world economies, that Obama isn't cleaning up their mess fast enough. Not a terribly bright argument, is it?

Obama is not a communist. Why do you guys always go against the other side by calling them extreme. If he where a Marxist then you wouldn't have a computer right now. Obama is a failure just like Bush. Ron Paul will also be a failure if he wins. Ever since politics started being televised our elected leaders have been failures. The reason for that is because it is now all about popularity and looks. Notice how a bald and over weight man hasn't been president since TV came in. Part of it is also the peoples fault for voting on looks rather then someone that would do a good job running the country. You are all failures.

Obama has sought to set Blacks against Whites repeatedly. He claims that Republicans are to blame for every ill of our economy yet spends our tax dollars like they were his to give to his cronies.

The only private sector jobs that are on any increase are service industry jobs.

You say, "Obama is not a communist." What do you call following the rantings of Saul Alinsky to a t? You say, "Obama is not a Marxist as I have a computer." LOL...If Obama had his way, and he is attempting to get it though Congress, NO Conservative BLOGGER would be allowed to publish their thoughts! Your statements about politics being about looks...TRUE...Lookat Pelosi, enough Botox to kill a horse! Look at Obama...narcissim personified! Look at Barney Frank, enough female hormones to service a choruc line! Every policy of Reagan led to JOBS. Every policy of Obama leads to NO JOBS of note! Vote for Obama and you vote for slavery of ALL CHILDREN! So...who are the losers? LIBERALS!